So it was somewhat of a normal week compared to the week prior.  There were still a few events on throughout the country and none more challenging that the suite of events on at the West Mac Monster in the Northern Territory. Looking at the performances there and the brutality of the course and conditions we might need to review our top 5 toughest ultras list. 

Great to see plenty of you taking it easy and enjoying the recovery this week after all the big ultras.  It wasn’t the case for everyone though with some big numbers across the board.  Margie Hadley topped the distance leaderboard again with another 200km+ week.  Margie totalled 208.3km for the week and just keeps eating up the miles well done Margie. 

In second place for the week is our all-time weekly distance record holder, Stephen Wright.  The #ultragrandad ran 170.1km for the week, only 400km short of his record! 

Jodie Cumner was our third place getter this week with 156.6km.  I’m many of these were run pacer her athletes at the GC30 event on the Gold Coast yesterday. 

Top place in elevation this week went to Eve Lanoux with 4,458m of climbing.  Eve took on the epic Sonder Monster as part of the West Mac Monster event in the NT.  The elevation profile show some big time climbs.  Well done Eve. 

Second place with 4,344m of elevation was regular leaderboard participant John Newman.  John always seems to run in some amazing locations for trail running. 

Third place this week was another participant in the West Mac Monster, Nicholas Chevalley.  According to Strava Nicholas climbed 3,633m but his watch did die about 21km out.. so there’s probably a few 100 more meters in those legs! But hey, if it’s not on Strava… 

Great to see the running this week whether it was recovery, training, or racing on road or trails.  To see the full top 5 leaderboard have a look on our website: https://hillbillyendurance.com.au/pages/hillbilly-endurance-run-crew

As always there was lots of runs to consider for the epic run of the week and these are just the ones we see.  There was the big ultra efforts at West Mac Monster, there was some ultra distance training runs and there was some Parkrun and PBs in races.  The one that stood out for us though as the most epic was more about why we run and less about what we accomplish.  

Laura Kistemaker raced in the 15km at the GC30 event on the Gold Coast.  On the surface it looks like a really good 15km race, but after a bit of research it was much more than that.  This was Laura’s first race in three and a half years!  This was one for the mums out there and it’s great to see Laura have such a great race.  Now I know Laura personally and she runs with us on Wednesday’s when she can but like many parents with young kids we often prioritise everything else above our own health, fitness and enjoyment.  They’re the things we sacrifice first for our families and I know Laura does this too, sometimes turning the last couple of kilometres of our group run into a race in order to get home on time.  So when I saw that she entered a race for herself I was stoked.  It was an even bigger bonus to see that she crushed it! Finishing just outside the top 20 in a field over almost 1,000.  Well done Laura.  We’ll be in touch with your 25% off discount voucher for our store. 

Make sure you let us know about your epic runs by tagging @hillbillyendurance in your Facebook and Instagram posts or even send as a message with a link to your Strava if you don’t want to post on socials.  

We will again be picking an Epic Run of the Year and sending out a prize pack.  We will pick the winner from our weekly winners so make sure you let us know about your runs!